How can we tell this? Well, in the penultimate sentence of the book, Toynbee wrote,
"As differentiation is the mark of growth, so standardisation is the mark of disintegration".Yes, folks, standardisation will be the EU\’s doom. All that men and women of goodwill have to do is wait, and the EU will finish itself, its corpse rolling down the curve of a standardised banana.
We can hope, eh?
The First Emperor of China standardised all the weights and measures. His Dynasty didn’t last long, just one heir holding on for a few years.
However his political system lasted until 1911.
I don’t think the smart money is on Toynbee Senior.
On the other hand I wonder how long we have until someone orders the Burning of Useless Books and subsequent Burying Alive of Scholars?